Name: New EU fingerprint travel rules due to start in October | BBC News
Uploaded: 2024-04-01T07:30:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 23 s
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Well, we're staying in Europe now because travel businesses are spending tens of millions of pounds and euros preparing for the EU's much-delayed new border control system.

The entry-exit system, now due to launch in the autumn, means that non-EU nationals, including people from the UK, will have to register their fingerprints and a photo before being allowed into the bloc.

Well, there have been repeated warnings that this registration process will cause delays for holiday makers at British border points, including the port of Dover, the Eurostar station in London, and the Eurotunnel entry point in Folkestone, where French border police check passports as people leave the UK.

Our transport correspondent, Katie Austin, has the latest on what's being done to minimise the impact.

Since Brexit, Brits have had to have their passports stamped as they travel through.

This autumn, a new EU IT system is due to go live at the border.

It'll also mean people have to register their fingerprints, have a photo taken, and answer some questions about their journey.

And at places like Dover, the registration process will have to be done here at the port.

People queuing for ferries will be handed an iPad to collect the extra information.

Dover has already suffered from long queues at peak periods.

The time it will take to register has prompted concerns of longer waits.

So right now, it takes somewhere between 45 seconds and a minute and a half, typically, for a car to go through border controls.

So a first-time traveller who has to register their details should anticipate that it will take a couple of minutes to register those details on the system.

So then it depends on how many people are in the car, what nationalities are in the car as well.

The port is spending about £10 million preparing, trying to make things go smoothly.

Coach loads of passengers will be processed in a separate area.

There's also a plan to reclaim land from the sea by next summer to create more space.

Coach companies like this one in Cornwall worry about bottlenecks getting worse.

We find that a lot of our customers have already had a fairly lengthy journey before they even get to Dover.

We've also got to think about drivers' hours and the cost on drivers' hours.

Eurotunnel is putting £70 million towards new lanes for cars and machines like this to take people's details.

At Eurostar's London St Pancras terminal, space is tight.

To try to avoid long queues, it will install 49 new EES kiosks.

It's expanding into other areas of the station like this to fit them in.

Behind me you have where our passengers arrive normally for check-in today.

And unfortunately, EES brings an additional step where we have kiosks and those kiosks will be positioned just around the corner.

Also a huge amount of people there to guide our passengers.

Eurostar insists its preparations will mean people don't need to turn up any earlier before a train.

For the first six months, the EU is expected to allow EES checks to be reduced if queues get really bad.

Still, travel businesses have nerves about what's on the horizon.